Leslie A Lamb/Sifted Wheat

Author: lesliealamb

  • Nature Calls

    “From the beginning of the world, men could see what God is like through the things He has made. This shows His power that lasts forever. It shows that He is God.”

    God delights to show His love for us.

    I marvel over little things. I like to sit for long spells and watch nature, the hues of butterflies and dragonflies, the many facets of a bird’s wing, and the slow creeping of a secure turtle. As I watch them I am reminded of my Creator…of the intricate way that He has designed me, of the many facets of His personality that make up my nature, and in Him I can keep moving, knowing that I am His.

    When I fail to take these moments, I can miss His messages of love.

    We try not to be selfish. We try not to want to feel good, happy, comforted, or secure. We know for the most part that others are going through far worse and have experienced the unthinkable. We are constantly reminded of wars and rumors of war whether in the world or in homes or dear precious bodies. The darkness of the world slaps us in the face day after day after day after day. But, is it wrong to seek those moments for our selves? Is it selfish to need to be reminded that He cares?

    God created us to seek Him.

    When we seek Him we cannot help but look within. It’s when we look within that we see the many places we are lacking. We realize with infinite reality that we can’t change our circumstances, but we can change our attitude. And, when we find ourselves there, seeking Him, conversing with Him over the marvels of nature, we realize that what moments before might have seemed the biggest most depressing acknowledgement in the world, is actually one of peace.

    He didn’t create us for ourselves.

    Just the fact that we draw in breath day after day is evidence of our life’s purpose. No one is here by accident. Recently a friend of mine had triplets far too early. All three babies were delivered, but one lived only for a while. We might be tempted to get upset. What was the purpose of that, God? That life was in vain. But, we would be wrong. The reason thelittle guy died is because he was subjected to toxins and bacteria that his brother and sister were not. He kept them safe by blocking the birth canal, taking the sickness into himself to spare his siblings. They are alive and thriving today. His little life had great purpose for them!

    He loves us.

    We can’t neglect this all-important fact. As much as you love the person/thing that you love the most and cannot fathom what it would feel like to love more…multiply that by infinity…and that’s but a fraction of how much God loves us. Can’t fathom that? Nope. But, it’s true. His Word tells us that His love “endures forever.” Endure is pretty intense word. It means that it doesn’t give up. It means that it tolerates anything. It means that it stands firm in the midst of any adversity. And it means that it is on going!

    He is for us.

    I’m not trying to stroke your ego or mine. But, as I was listening to the heart of God this morning in my own very hurting heart, Hespoke this to me. “I am for you.” We gloss over this. We take this lightly. That, too, has deep meaning! He is for us means more than that He will fight for us. It means that He “takes the place of, works on behalf of, in respect of, concerning, and in spite of,” us. Let that sink in. Because sometimes we need to know that He fights for us, but more often than not we just need toknow that He is for us…and He is…remember His love?

    Every time I take the time to look at nature, I see Him…and I see what I need to be more like. I also wonder what they know, these creatures that seem to have the simplest lives? Do they know that they have a Creator? Do they know that we can see evidence of Him through them? Do theyknow that as they simply flutter by our hair or squirm on the ground, we hear our Father whisper His love? I think they do. I also believe that He created them not just for His good pleasure but because in His enduring love, He purposed them for us…to remind us…we have purpose, too.

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  • I follow Jesus not Dan Cathy

    I’m most likely gonna lose friends and followers, but I’m okay with that. Really. I’m not here to be popular. I think it’s important to speak, irregardless of backlash. We need to think about what we are doing.

    In the last two weeks Christians have been in an uproar. First it was the tragedy in Colorado, and now it is the great Chick-fil-A ban of 2012. What is happening to us? I only ask because I’m concerned. I’m concerned that we are more eager and energetic to spread an agenda than to spread the Good News.

    While people are still struggling with PTSD and packing up memories of precious loved ones, we feel the need to reiterate our “right” to bear arms. We have made their tragedy into a call for arms? Really? How is that fair? How does that matter? How is that helping those left picking up the pieces after we’ve commented and tweeted it to death? If we spent more energy on our knees and interceding not for our safety and rights but for their pain and healing and eternal hope in Christ, we might actually be answering our call, fulfilling the great commission, sharing love not debating fire arms.

    Wait.

    I’m not finished.

    Which leads me to the Chick-fil-A Ban… I am APPALLED at some of things I have seen Christians post about how this ban has made the restaurant cleaner and safer and a more friendly environment since the liberals are gone. What?! What are we doing?! Have we become so obsessed with our agendas that we have lost our hearts for the lost?! I’m not saying all liberals are lost, but posts like that imply it.. They also imply that unbelievers are dirty, filthy, intruders and we should rid ourselves of them. Hmmm. Who is intolerant now? I wonder if we spent as much time feeding the hungry and homeless as we have pushing this fast food establishment we might reconnect with what Jesus came to do?

    Here is the hard truth (or rather two of them):
    1. Jesus would not have carried a gun and wouldn’t have encouraged the disciples to fight to keep theirs. In fact, the one time we see warfare face to face with our Savior, He scolds the sword wielder and replaces a man’s ear.

    2. Jesus would not eat at Chick-fil-A unless He had been invited for some nuggets and waffle fries while speaking to a few thousand people about how none of that is important.
    This is the same Lord that said “Give unto Caesar what is Caesars” and “Man shall not live by (breaded chicken) alone” (okay.. He didn’t say that, but you get my point.)

    Yes. The world is an icky place. Yes. We are doing somethings He would not condone. Yes. We are at the mercy of free will everyday. That’s why He made the statement,“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world!” We are overcomers.. THROUGH CHRIST. Our agendas are merely preferences… They are our security in a fallen world. But, when we cling so tightly to our securities that we abandon the lost, we have missed His point! We can fight until our voices are gone and every last one of us is dead, but what are we fighting for? Who are we fighting for and who are we fighting against? The upstanding role of our religion, or the broken heart of Daddy God?

    Who do we follow -Jesus or Dan Cathy or anyone else we pin up as a poster child for religious agenda?What is more important – Our rights or His sacrifice? What is more Courageous – to make a world that we are comfortable in or to love unconditionally in an uncomfortable world?

    I can’t answer for you, but I’m speaking love instead of debate. I’m not jumping on a bandwagon just because I see a cross. I’m trusting in Jesus and I’m letting my light shine, and if I get gunned down for it, well, somebody fought for that.

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  • Untangled

    The other day I woke up and didn’t want to get out of bed. Laundry was piled in all corners, stacks of miscellaneous items littered the house, and dust a mile high (a slight exaggeration) coated my fan blades. I put my head under my pillow and tried to hide. Too much. It’s too much. I was completely overwhelmed.

    In my attempt to hide, God spoke to me. “Clean your house.” I know that could have been my conscience, after all, I wanted to be lazy, but it was the words that followed that made me sure of the Source. “You’re life right now represents your house. Clean up the physical world, and it will straighten the spiritual.” I know that sounds weird. It sounds like something hokey that someone would say as they faded in and out on a cloud of reality and dreams, but I felt it. Deeply. And despite my weakness and absolute dislike of the task at hand, I got up with resolve to clean my house.

    I started with laundry, the least daunting of the tasks before me. I enlisted the girls to help. If we each did our part we could have it done in no time. The kitchen was looking better, the living room was straightened, and Lily’s room was tidy and neat (there are indeed perks to having a child who is slightly OCD). Then, I walked to Maddie’s room. She was on her bed, listening to her iPod. Nothing had changed.

    Resisting the urge to scream, I told her to get up and clean and that she wasn’t going to be able to leave her room until it was done! She didn’t like that idea, and in a huff and true preteen attitude, she swept her arm across the top of her counter and watched it fall to the floor. I gasped! Then I watched as she got down on her hands and knees and started sorting through her stuff, finding a place for each and every item. Her method didn’t make sense but the result was the same.

    She had a pile in the corner that she reserved as “trash.” I was relocating it to a trash bag when I found a wadded up mess of jewelry. Costume jewelry. I looked at it and considered throwing it away. It had little to no value, and I doubted I could make sense of it. It was overwhelming tolook at much less to consider unraveling. But, at the point I was going to toss it, I heard His voice again, “Overwhelming? Worthless? Take the time to unravel it.” I knew it would take time. I was on a mission to clean and this was going to take precious time that honestly I didn’t have. But He beckoned.

    Resolved, I sat on the floor, Maddie having left and taken up playing with her sister and friends, and began to inspect the lump of chains. Slowly but surely the mess began to make sense. I figured out that it was an entanglement of four necklaces and a bracelet. In the stillness, I found it a challenge to find exactly how each chain made it’s way around the other. And, as each kink released and the wad looked more like a tangle, I felt a sense of accomplishment. It took a full thirty minutes to have each chain unworked and set aside. At the end of that time, I smiled. The time had been worth the work, but where was the reward? Not that I needed one. Those minutes had been spent working out my own tangles, thinking through my relationships and ministry issues and finding peace in the midst of it all.

    I heard His voice, and paid attention to the pictures He showed me, and it became clear that all too often we are ready to be rid of the mess. It seems to us far easier to throw it away when it doesn’t fit just right. We base the value of something on itseffectiveness to us, and if it isn’t working then it’s lost its value. Sometimes the work seems too much for the results we are seeing, so we are tempted in our discouragement to let it go. We give up. We want to find another easier, more simple calling or relationship that doesn’t require as much of us. When we can’t see the outcome and all we see is the lump it doesn’t feel as important to us. But, it is important to Him.

    My story isn’t over yet. My lesson wasn’t complete until a few minutes later, I had moved onto something else (cleaning up my jewelry box actually), when Maddie came into her room and saw the necklaces. “Mom! I’ve been looking for those forever!” She lit up and I resisted the urge to tell her that she almost threw them away. As she walked off singing some melody, I heard His voice again, “Don’t give up…what you are untangling is the very thing you are looking for…and I promise the joy she feels right now is nothing compared to the joy that is coming.”

    I don’t know what that means. But I believe it was His voice, and I know exactly what He is talking about. It would be easy at times to throw in the towel. To simply be and do and not worry about everything else, but that isn’t what I’m here for…and I refuse.

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  • Love deeper

    I spent a few days on a tall hill, a mountain in Arkansas, appropriately named Mt. Moriah. It’s the third year in a row that my dearest sisters in Christ and mentors and I have made the trek, and each time we have been blessed with life-changing lessons. This year was no different. Some of us met discipline, and some of us expected discipline but received grace.

    It was in the midst of a rain storm on the top of the hill when grace met me. I was desperate. I was there to lay my life on the altar of sacrifice, to see His face and to walk away dead but alive. I sat in the middle of the circle, begging Him to rid me of myself, to show me my sins, and to scold me for my failures. Only He was silent. If I could put the moment into words, we had a staring contest. Both of us looking at this altar and neither of us moving, only waiting for the other to. Finally I made a spiritual rush, took my place, laid out on a table, arms spread wide, fully submitted, waiting for lightening. It didn’t come. If God would “tsk” at us, this was that moment, and in my heart I heard three words, “It is finished.”

    I sat up and listened.

    “I love you, Leslie. You don’t have to get it to receive it. You don’t have to understand it, but you have to accept it.” I imagined Him looking me in the eyes as the lesson continued, “You spend so much time apologizing for your failures, and pointing out your flaws to Me when you don’t really get that I don’t see you through those things. You wait for my wrath, the same bitter cup of wrath and judgment that my Son drank in for you. He drained that cup. It’s empty. My justice was satisfied.”

    I swallowed these Truths, and listened for more.

    “I am love. And, I love. Everyone. It’s hard for you to fathom, but I have just as much love for you as I do the most despicable ofcreation. I love the murders, the pedaphiles, the adulterers, the thieves, and I long for them to know this!”

    I considered that as I recalled the scripture verse in Ephesians: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

    How wide: You can’t escape it. We try. We cling to a million different things in the hopes that they will meet our needs, but they don’t and as far as we run, we find ourselves surrounded by His love.

    How long: There is no breaking point. God doesn’t say, “I love you to this point and then you are on your own.” Our strings break, our patience thins, but His love goes on and on and on.

    How high: You can’t attain it. There is not a bit of good that you can do that earns His love. It’s like building a tower, no matter how high you go, no matter how many materials you possess, you aren’t going to reach the end of it.

    How deep: I think this is where we lose sight of His character most. We forget that His love can reach beyond any pit we find ourselves in. We think He can’t possibly want anything to do with us when we are struggling, tempted, or publically condemned. Or, more likely, we think He won’t redeem the greatest sin, the deepest obsession, the darkest evil. We doubt His love for the least of these. We gloss over passages that mention that Jesus spent His time with the “worst of sinners.” In our heads, we imagine tax-collectors and prostitutes, but it’s also highly likely they were murders and thieves, pedaphiles and molesters. I imagine with one look into His eyes, they were undone. His love was penetrable. He didn’t have to speak their sin, they knew who and what they were. He didn’t have to point them out because they were already pariahs. And still, His love reached deeper than that.

    It’s hard for us to imagine. We stand in pride and say “Look at me. I am worthy before God because… “ and we rattle off a list of accomplishments, and God says, “So? I mean really, thanks for that, but if you didn’t do it for love, I’d rather you not do it at all.”

    Love. There is a reason why it’s the greatest commandment and the greatest gift. When we set our selves free to love, we are free to live – without condemnation, without guilt, and without shame. When we spend more time thinking about what we can do for others instead of what we’d like them to do for us, then we really get the kind of love He is talking about. When you can look with the same endearing smile at the man that smells of urine and has no teeth as you can at the sweetest most innocent child, then I think we might be feeling it. When you can speak as encouragingly to the single mom stripper as you can to the stay at home mom, then you might be expressing His love.

    I challenge you. Love deeper. Because, whether we get it or not, love is what it is all about. Nothing else we do matters, if we aren’t first, His love.

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  • I raise my Ebenezer

    Tomorrow marks 2 years. Two years ago I knew God, served Him and understood Him as best as I could. I knew Him to be loving and faithful and kind and patient. We’d been through a lot. The worst and the best. I was His and He was mine and yet.. There was an element to our relationship that was missing. Up until 2 years ago, God functioned in my life, side by side, intimately but at a distance. There was Him and there was me and that was all I required.

    Then July 3, 2010 my world flipped upside down! Not in the natural. In the natural, I was learning about the heart, about how you can never really know someone and how the heart can be deceptive. In the spiritual, God was stretching me.. And in His caution, in His desire to have me hear His voice and know it was His warning, He spoke through others. Oh my mind can play it off as coincidence… They just happened to call at the right time, they just happened to sense danger, but that’s a deception. It was so much more than that, because on that night God didn’t only speak to me, He spoke to Others, virtual players in the plot.. Whether they fully knew it or not. I realize this is cryptic. But, I mark this day as a stone of Ebenezer which pronounces loudly “The Lord has brought me this far!”

    You don’t have to hear the details of my story (and no doubt it probably wouldn’t seem as harrowing a tale to you as it was to those of us that lived it face to face)… But what I got and what I need you to get is that God is not limited! Just as He did in the Old Testament, using others to profess His wisdom and guide His beloved, He still does the same today. You know. You’ve experienced it, but maybe like me until that night, you chalked it up as coincidence or random chance.. That the stranger at the bank would know your story without you sharing a word! Maybe it seemed possible that someone would text you and at just the right time with a divine Word that was just what you needed 3 days later? Maybe it’s logical that someone would appear at your doorstep the very moment you called out for help or a friend? Maybe. Or maybe it’s God. Heaven meeting earth not by random chance but divine appointment to say “I’m here. I see you. I love you. And I am for you.”

    July 3, 2010 my God fought for me. In my flesh I was weak and tired and scared, but in His spirit I found peace and hope and rescue… Both in the natural and supernaturally. It was the time in my life where God became Daddy God, and I knew without a doubt He was looking out for me with hands that reached, hearts that were broken, and mumbling lips of intercession. It wasn’t left for me to wonder “maybe..” He made it clear. “This is Me!” and when I doubted He spoke louder by text, no less, “Would this Person know This?” baring moments only He and I shared. It was the night I received one of the strongest warnings of my life “Don’t open the door!” Words spoken to me by a caring friend a full month before that night! It was the night He showed me what would happen if I obeyed and what He felt about disobedience. They were a series of powerful moments I will never forget, can never forget… And they’ve led me here… 2 years later… Safely and far more open to His power and ways than ever before!

    The verse I’ve come to cherish resonates in my heart tonight “His ways are not our ways neither are his thoughts our thoughts.” They aren’t! He is so much bigger, greater, patient, loving, gentle, powerful than we will ever fully know or can imagine! But on this day, I believe. On this day I trust what I cannot see and this day I remember what He’s already done, and praise Him for what He is yet to do! My SAVIOUR and my God!

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  • Directing Squirrels

    God spoke to me through a squirrel.

    We were coming home from a birthday lunch date with my daddy, and in the middle of the street there was a squirrel. He was pitiful. He was confused and dazed and didn’t know where to go. He’d head one way then circle around another way – going nowhere just spinning. He’d get dizzy so he would lay down his head and then twitch his tail and fight to stand up only to be dazed and confused again. It was one of the saddest things I’d ever witnessed. I wanted to cry, and I told my dad we had to help him. I was desperate to see him be safe!

    We went to my house, and I grabbed an old dog kennel. I figured maybe he we could lure him in and release him into a tree. Yes. I wasn’t thinking clearly. After all, my college roommate and I had played momma to a baby squirrel for a few weeks, in my right mind I would have remembered how dangerous a scared and trapped squirrel could be, but all I could think about was the danger it was in, my own didn’t matter.

    My dad and I walked over to where we had seen the squirrel, but in just those five short minutes it had taken to get him some help, he’d moved. We weren’t content with that we wanted to know where, so we walked a little and saw a tail twitch at the base of a tree. It was our little squirrel! He was slowly but surely making his way up the tree, to safety. I saw my compassionate dad getting choked up and wrapped my arms around him! My dad leaned his head to mine and said, “I’m glad he made it home.”

    God spoke to me later that day. He said “That desperation, that heartache that you felt for that simple squirrel is but a fraction of what I feel as I watch my misguided children spin about dazed and confused with no where to turn. I need you to point them to safety. I need you to make sure they find the tree, the cross, and I’ll Take it from there. Just point them to Me.”

    And that’s what we do. Everyday, in a million different ways.. Whether its through Teen Christian Ministries, LeadHer Academy, or writing books, We point to the cross. We are desperate at times! We want to grab them and force them into safety, not wanting to see them face the pain or heartache we have, and we forget that we can’t save them. That’s the hardest truth. We can’t save them. But He can! Only, they have to choose to fight, to shake off the confusion, and find their way to safety. But they have to walk it.. We can’t place them there.

    I was pondering this very heartbreak after sharing my squirrel story with my friend, brother and writing cohort, when I was reminded of one of Jesus’ own moments of pain and desperation:

    When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. “What a huge harvest!” he said to his disciples. “How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands!” (Matthew 9:36, 37, 38 MSG)

    His heart broke! He saw their confusion and their aimlessness and His heart broke. The one that could save them stood amongst them, but what did He say? He turned to the disciples and basically said, “You see that? They need YOU to help them.”

    That’s my same hope and inspiration! I can only do so much. I only see so many squirrels..err.. People.. But WE see many.. And if we are willing He would point out so many more! His heart is breaking still at their aimless confusion and desperation, and He addresses us, as He addressed me last week, “I need you to point them to me.. And I’ll take it from there.”

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  • The importance of being “weird”

    I swore I wasn’t gonna be one of those weird moms – the ones that didn’t let their kids watch certain shows or confine them to the house or separate them from the world by their entertainment or lack of. But that was a resolution I made when I was childless, when I didn’t understand the dangers of giving them free reign, when I didn’t realize the so called “weird moms” were simply doing their job.. And those that weren’t were giving in.

    My children often hear the line, “It’s more important to me that I protect you than that you like me.” When they want to post videos on YouTube for public view, or have a Facebook like their friends even though they are under age, or they want to spend the day with a friend and her teenage brother, they don’t understand. They think I’m being mean, but I am protecting them from what could be, what might be, if I weren’t so weird.

    I’ve heard the line, “You’re just projecting.” So what if I am? So what if my past pain and regret have made me wiser and more aware of things that other parents might not notice or see as a danger? I vowed that my pain would have purpose, and this is part of that purpose – to save my kids from many of my seemingly innocent pitfalls, to warn them so that they might abscond from wearing my scars. I realize I can’t protect them from everything, but so what if I’m projecting.. If in the end it protects them?

    I don’t go crazy with it. There are certain things that I allow them to do and watch that other Christian parents would probably disagree with, but I discuss issues that those same parents probably won’t address either. Like sexuality, sexting, and pornography. I refuse to sweep that under a rug labeled, “mature content.” I will never forget the first time I had a dream about my best friend and dreamed I had kissed her. I asked my mom about it, what it meant, why I had imagined such a thing? My mom simply said, “You love your friend, right?” I admitted I did. “You spend a lot of time with her?” I did. “Well, our brain tries to process our emotions, and dreams are one place we do that. It doesn’t make you a lesbian, it means you love your friend, and your mind can misplay that affection.” Now, some of you are probably rolling your eyes, but I was 11 and that made sense and in the future when I had bizarre dreams, I remembered what she said. I still do. I want to be the one to inform my kids, because they are gonna find out about it, if not from me then from their misguided friends.

    In a world saturated with sex and self image, I’m careful about what my kids watch. We don’t watch much TV. We don’t let them watch “Biggest Loser.” That probably seems strange but in a world obsessed with appearance and the fear of obesity (because according to a recent study teenagers are more scared of that than nuclear war or the death of a loved one!), even shows like that plant seeds of dissatisfaction. Don’t believe me? After a few weeks of watching the show, my daughter, then 9, started doing laps around the house and wouldn’t stop until she had burned so many calories. She still makes comments about her body compared to others. It breaks my heart. But how can I blame her when I find myself fighting the same thoughts?!

    She doesn’t like it that she’s one of the only girls in her class that hasn’t read and watched all of the Twilight series, but really, she isn’t missing much more than pent up sexual aggression and nightmares of golden-eyed vampires. (By the way, I’m was Team Jacob, before he imprinted a baby.. What was that about?!) I shudder when I pass rows and rows of young adult fiction that feast on young minds to glorify the occult. Granted I’m writing a series about Angels and Demons that others might determine “inappropriate,” but if your gonna highlight a battle between good and evil, might as well use the Truth that sets us free.

    I haven’t let my oldest read my books, either. This gets under her skin, “You’re my mom! You wrote them for me, didn’t you? Let me read them.” And she is right. I did write them for her, but when the time is right. Now is not the time, I’m the parent and the author, I will determine when. Besides its a little bit of cowardliness on my part, because their is the underlying fear that 1. She won’t finish it, and 2. she won’t like it. I just don’t think I can handle that truth just yet.

    So I’m weird. But in a good way, not in a smother your kids, hide them from the world, and watch every one else burn kinda way.. But in the way that says, “I love you enough to tell you no, and I’ll put on my big girl panties and not cry when you tell me you hate me.” In fact, I’m weird enough to encourage other parents to be weird.. Because no one else is protecting our children, and God called us to lead them.. That includes taking care of their minds. God’s word says “it is better for a millstone (that’s a threshing stone about the size of a tire wheel) to be tied around your neck than to lead any of these little ones astray.” Wow. I’m not particularly fond of drowning… But, Maybe I’m just weird.

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  • A Bird in the Hand

    “…And you count far more to him than birds.”

    God gave me a very real lesson this weekend, a moment that captivated my heart and my attention and spoke life into a hard and trying time.

    The story:
    My friend and I were sitting at a local restaurant. We were talking about some of the hardship that I had just faced, the attack of the enemy with an arrow trained directly at my heart and my past. Actually we were both sharing, about our faith and our trust despite the accusations that others might want to level at us. It was in that moment of serious honesty and transparency that something hit the window.

    I flinched. She noticed, and wondered what it was. Then I saw it the little bird outside the window, heaving for breath and looking so tiny and vulnerable under a chair of a young girl that was completely unaware that her foot may just take a life. I looked at my friend and she looked at me. “It’s a hummingbird,” she announced. I didn’t believe it. To me it was just a baby. But she was sure, “It’s a hummingbird. Look at the beak.” She was right. Then, she said what I knew in my heart, “We have to go out there and rescue it!” She ran for one last refill, and I ran outside to see what I could do.

    I ran out and told the girls sitting at the table, “There is a bird there. We have to rescue it!” At first they looked at me like I was crazy. It was, after all, a bird. We stooped down and picked it up and my friend, Dionne, took him in her hands. She stroked its chest and silently we both prayed and willed that bird to find its wings. You could tell it was stunned. It was blinking its little eyes rapidly and trying, it seemed, to get its bearings.

    I marveled at the moment, here was this most beautiful green hummingbird completely still in the hand! I announced the miracle of this to the girls whose table we’d invaded as Dionne looked on the verge of tears. Something, no EVERYTHING, in me told me that I had to capture this moment. So I did. At this point the girls were interested, a stilled hummingbird, “I want a picture, too!” And the bird was still just long enough. The pictures were taken, and with one small, fast (after all it was a hummingbird) flit of its wings, it flew off.

    The rest of the story:
    That amazing moment, though so short, spoke volumes very specifically and intimately to both of us. To Dionne, it was a moment of captivating love lavished on her from Daddy God to say “I see, I know, I hold you…” and so many other personal messages of love and hope that only she can interpret.

    To me it was lesson. It’s like Daddy God said, “I know that you have been stunned. I know that you are hurt and you feel that your pain came out of nowhere. But, like this little bird there are two choices: You can stay on the ground and struggle to breathe and possibly find yourself trampled under the weight of it. Or, you can let Me pick you up, remind you of your purpose and My purpose in you. Open yourself to love again and be loved, and find the wings to soar once more.”

    Is that you? Are you stunned, finding yourself hurting from an injury you never saw coming maybe from those you least expected? Take heart. If God cared so much for this errant bird (one of the tiniest that you can find!), how much more does He care for you! Let our story be your hope. And, it’s no surprise that upon further research and the input of others more acquainted with birds… our friend is thought to be female. Well, of course she was. 😉

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  • A sea of faces

    The first picture God ever showed me was powerful. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I was riding in the car along with Brian on a road trip. We were newly married, I think. I had faded off to sleep, as I tend to do on rides lasting more than an hour. Suddenly this amazing sight of Jesus on the cross met the back of my eyelids. It was beautiful and strong. He hung there suspended on a cross between time and eternity. He looked at me.

    I couldn’t make out features. It wasn’t “and I saw the face of God” kind of vision. But I knew it was Him, if I didn’t know it by the accessory of the cross, I knew it by the love and grace and mercy that poured from Him. The moment wasn’t about me taking Him in. The moment, the flash of a second really, was about Him recognizing me…Him taking me in…Him saying without any words, “I know you.” I remember feeling like I needed to catch my breath the magnitude of the vision was so strong, and it settled in my heart what He was saying. He was telling me that He did it for me. He was showing me in so many ways that it was His love for me specifically that He bore those thorns, and carried that cross, and took those nails. For me.

    No sooner was I grasping the amazing truth of those words than there was a flood of pictures, people by the thousands! Maybe even millions! In one flash He gave them the same message that He showed me – His love and intention. It was intimate and specific for ALL of us! Now, I should note that this was before we saw movies where you had the super sonic flash of frame upon frame, sped up so fast if you blinked you might miss one or twenty images. And each flash held meaning and the words echoed, “I know you…” In those flashes every tribe and every nation, every combination of color imaginable was represented in every walk of life… Every last one of them He saw from the cross- every last one of US.

    If you’ve ever thought, “He didn’t really do that for me. That’s just a pastor’s emotional tribute to pull on my heart strings.” I can say with certainty, I saw you. I might not be able to recognize you if I saw you on the street, or even in a line up, but I know that in all those millions of flashes, you were there! And you know it too, if you will allow yourself to believe. You felt His eyes, you reverberated with the beat of His heart that echoes loudly in yours, “I know you.” He didn’t hang from that cross thinking, “Don’t you see what you did? Don’t you see what I endured for you?” He hung from that cross and His blood poured out and He saw your face and said, “I know you.”

    And in that “know” He means: “I see you now as I saw you then. I loved you from that cross. I knew that in that moment I was taking away all your guilt and all your shame, and it was worth it to me…you are worth it. Even you who do not know me and do not care to know me…I know you. I saw your pierced face and your tattoos and your hurt and your pain and I wanted it on me so that you could walk away free. I saw your sin and your hidden secrets and I bore their consequences on my shoulders so that you wouldn’t have to hide. I looked past religion and rules and knew that you would never measure it up, and that broke my heart because I love you. So I tore the veil away and I made the path to my Father wide open…so that you would never say you weren’t welcome…weren’t loved…weren’t worthy. I created you, I named you, I see you, and I know you. You are mine.”

    In a sea of faces, each one stood out. It was a powerful vision…and it will always stick with me. It was seared on my heart. Not just the dream of a weary traveler, but a vision from a gracious Lord that will stop at NOTHING to remind us of His amazing Love.

  • For the love of them…or us?

    I recently read a great article about Toms. The shoes. But more so the real purpose of the company.

    It’s a great idea, right? You buy a pair of shoes and they will give a pair of shoes to kids who don’t have them. I’ve seen kids with bare feet and gone on medical clinics to see them treated for hookworm and other things because of it. By golly, I will pay $50 for a pair of canvas shoes for a good cause! Who wouldn’t?

    But, the article I read made a point. Even though this is a good cause (it is, no one is disputing that). It’s not really solving any real problems. Why? Because the company works from outside of the countries that are in need. They make the shoes, consumers buy them, and they are delivered to countries that need them. Who feels the best about what they do? The consumer. It’s a company model built around a good cause, but in the end it’s meant to make the consumer feel good about what they buy.

    What’s wrong with that? Nothing. Intrinsically. But it isn’t solving the real problem…the reason the kids don’t have shoes isn’t that they aren’t available. The reason the kids don’t have shoes is that they are in poverty stricken countries where they can’t afford shoes. So, they get shoes. They also get rice and beans from a charitable aid organization, shoe boxes filled with well-meaning gifts once a year, but they are still living in poverty. Have we fixed the problem or have we simply made ourselves feel better?

    I’m not saying any of those things are bad. In fact, quite the opposite! They are good things! Don’t stop supporting organizations that help underprivileged countries! They need all the help they can get! But is our help a momentary fix or a solution? That’s all I want to ask.

    I recently read a post on my brother’s wall that basically said that sometimes it takes a cold cup of water from a person’s hand before you will accept the Living Water from their hearts. I get that. Meet a physical need to gain access to meet their spiritual need. Christ exemplified that. There is nothing wrong with that. But, the old Chinese proverb holds some truth, too – “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.” So the question I’m pondering today is this, in my good deeds am I simply making myself feel better for the day, or will their lives be different?

    There is a time and place for every purpose under heaven. Solomon drives that point home. But, there are organizations that are making permanent solutions in war-torn and poverty stricken countries not just momentary fixes but hard core “We see this need and we are going to fix the problem not slap a bandaid on it.” I want to see more of this.

    Toms could do more to make a difference, a permanent difference. They could teach the locals how to make their shoes (honestly, it can’t be too hard!). They could buy the canvas, the leather, and the cork from those people, and sell them very cheaply so that the poor make a profit… then those leftovers that don’t sell…they could be given to the kids that desperately need them. That’s just a thought. But the point is, one pair of shoes at a time is only going to last at the most a year. Whereas teaching them how to make the shoes and sell them, that could make a lifetime of difference to ailing countries. Like, Digging wells. This is a permanent solution. This makes a complete and total difference in the areas that get this privilege. We take for granted our easy access to water as we fling another bottle in our purse as we leave the gym, we don’t even think about famine or drought or the fact that the animals bathe and leave waste in the one stream we might share as a village…which is like 3 or more of our subdivisions combined. Organizations and missionaries that teach a trade in order to help villages to support themselves, not to live off of temporary handouts, these people are heros…life savers…fixers. Artists that take their time to teach African women designs for necklaces that they can make and sell to raise money to invest in their families and communities, this is life-changing work. Funding goats and livestock and corn and seed and feed, these are donations that are going to make a failing community prosper! These things will feed and clothe and aid multiple families and pass on hope and knowledge and wellness to the next generation. And, these are just a few roles of amazing organizations from medical to agricultural that are making life-restoring differences!

    I will probably still buy Toms. And I hope you will, too. I’m not out to sabotage good works. I just want to ask the question, “Am I doing this for the love of them…or me?” I am not leading a crusade to fight economic injustice; I just want to ask myself the tough questions, the raw questions that get to the quick of my motivation because I want to see their lives changed for the better for GOOD not just for the moment. I don’t want there to be any doubt that the work that is done IS for them and not for me, and that the One that sent me provides not just for a day but for all eternity.